TMCnet News
CallTower Completes Large Hosted Unified Communications Implementation for California School District(Market Wire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) FOSTER CITY, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/02/11 -- CallTower, the market-leading provider of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), today announced that the company successfully has completed implementation of CallTower's On Demand Unified Communications service with the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD). CallTower's UCaaS provides schools with a single point of support, network options, productivity-enhancing calling and messaging features, redundancy and 24/7 service for a fixed monthly fee. Built on Cisco's Unified Communications Manager, CallTower's telephony package includes all the latest phones and features, as well as the full unified messaging voicemail system. "We had a clear vision of an all-IP communications model. The goal is to save staff time so they can concentrate on the needs of our students," said Mary Phillips, director of information technology of the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD). "In a school district, it is imperative that multiple forms of communication are readily available due to the unique needs of our clientele. Unified Communications helps us fulfill these needs." The Santa Clara Unified School District serves more than 15,000 K-12 students and an additional 15,000 students in adult school. Prior to the implementation of Call Tower's hosted VoIP solution, the district's primary source of voice communication was an obsolete, analog phone system which required internal IT resources and expertise to maintain. The old system lacked key voice and email features and had reached end-of-life for maintenance and support. "We wanted all of the applications and features of UC but needed to contain costs," explained Phillips. "We saw little benefit in owning and maintaining our own equipment and we wanted a hosted VoIP service based on the Cisco Unified Communications Manager along with Cisco Unified IP Phones. We were pleased to learn that hosted VoIP and UC solutions are now eligible for eRate Priority 1 funding. The transition to CallTower service has gone extremely well. The company has gone above and beyond in terms of its responsiveness and the outstanding service and support we have received every step along the way." The federal E-Rate program's goals are to provide discounted telecommunications, Internet access and internal connections to eligible schools and libraries, providing them with affordable access to modern telecommunications and information services. "There are so many school districts across the country that would greatly benefit from this technology but face a roadblock when trying to obtain the funding," said Bob Barnes, executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development, CallTower. "When we work together with our customers and technology partners we are able to come up with an affordable solution that makes the unified communications vision a reality. We hope to provide similar services for others to further the advancement of unified communications in education." For more information on CallTower's UCaaS solutions for school districts please visit http://www.calltower.com/business_applications/erateinterconnectedvoip.php About CallTower, Inc.CallTower is a leading provider of fully hosted and managed enterprise-class unified communications solutions. The company helps organizations transform voice and data communications into a strategic business tool that provides a competitive advantage. Its Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provides a feature-rich comprehensive solution based on an end-to-end Cisco® and Microsoft Unified Communications platform including Cisco® Unified Communications Manager, Microsoft® Lync Server, Microsoft® Office Communications Server, Microsoft® Exchange Server and Microsoft® SharePoint Server powered by the proprietary CallTower vXML VoiceCube voice messaging platform. With CallTower, organizations gain the functionality of all available advanced Unified Communications features in a reliable, stable and scalable environment, without the complexity and costs of buying, implementing and managing a solution internally. CallTower Media Contact Christy Kemp Dahlia Public Relations 303-898-3390 Email Contact Source: CallTower |